Possible scenario: Some DoJ person with a pot hardon tells ICE to set an all-vehicles-stopped checkpoint on US-101 near the Oregon-California border. (Both states have recreational legality.) Excuse: it’s in ICE jurisdiction, and they are looking for mojados (wetbacks, illegals). Many southbound cars will be found to transport pot across state lines because it’s cheaper in OR. These are federal charges, so no leniency.
Is this possible? Probable?
I’m in Indiana, and I’ve ‘heard’ that the Indiana police are going to step up enforcement.
Champaign IL is going to have some dispensaries, which means a lot of people from Indianapolis will be driving along I-74 to buy weed. So I’m assuming there will be extra enforcement along that interstate, at least for a while.
However out of state residents can only buy 15 grams of weed, or 250mg THC in the form of edibles (not sure if you can only possess one or both). My understanding is that for a lot of cops, people using weed recreationally isn’t a crime they really care about, its a low priority. Indianapolis recently had its prosecutor say he’d no longer prosecute simple weed possession crimes.
So I mean yeah the cops may set up all these traps, but at the same time it sounds like a lot of work for a crime that I assume a lot of cops don’t care about.
Then again, the highway patrol literally have nothing better to do, so there is that.
At least one Missouri customer has reported to me ( 
) that they had no problems with cops on either side of the river.
In other news, 4.5-hour line at the Collinsville dispensary.
Not a chance. It’s too far to Oregon when Humboldt is right there.
[Moderating]
While laws concerning marijuana are still in flux, it is still illegal to transport it across state lines. Thus, any post giving advice for how to do so is in violation of our rules. I have edited kayaker’s post; any further posts along those lines will result in a Warning.
You’ve not compared legal prices lately, I gather. And I didn’t say the checkpoint would be announced. I just wondered if this trick to trap the unwary was feasible.
I have seen several articles like this. It’s so strange since the trip from Payette/Nampa/Boise to Ontario is not a ton shorter than to Huntington. It must be crossing that time zone that freaks out the … freaks.
[Huntington was a classic railroad boom town where different lines met. It got a double hit when passenger rail traffic disappeared and I-84 went around it. The legal weed there while Ontario still banned pot shops lifted it out a bit of its long term doldrums. Now with shops opening in Ontario, it’s back to the downhill slide.]
AFAIK, even medical marijuana use is still a federal crime. What is to stop a rogue sheriff in CA from deciding to become an agent of the feds, the way Sheriff Arpaio took on illegal immigrants?
Impeachment or just not being reelected to office.
If the pretext for the stop is looking for illegals (Persons illegally in the country), I would hope that personal searches or looking in the glovebox would get the search tossed, much as the same would apply to search warrants where inappropriate places are searched. You can look at who is in the passenger seat, whether someone is hiding in the trunk or maybe under the hood (??) but where else would you hide an illegal resident over the age of 2? Of course a trunkful or a baggie in plain sight is an invitation to be charged.
Then too, would ICE have to explain why there was a reasonable chance of finding illegal immigrants by a random highway stop?
When I started participating in Burning Man ten years ago marijuana in Nevada was illegal, to the point of being a felony. Then Nevada became a medical allowed state which evolved to a recreational state but it doesn’t matter; the event is on BLM land and Federal law superceeds state law. Accordingly at the Newbie Briefing we give every year, the advice is, “Yeah, it’s Burning Man but so far as weed is concerned, it’s just like the default world.”[ul]
[li]Keep your stash hidden[/li][li]Not in the same place as your ID[/li][li]Know your connection[/li][li]Your Arizona medical card is useless[/li][/ul]
The police would search the person and accessible areas like the glove box for ‘officer safety’ reasons allegedly looking for some kind of weapon, and if contraband happens to be found it would just be coincidental to the search and thus allowed as evidence. An officer making a Terry stop has really broad powers for warrantless searches for weapons. It’s really not hard for a cop to come up with a reason to feel that a person is dangerous and thus that he needs to check for possible weapons.
It’s 25 to 30 miles further. So it depends on how long the lines are in Ontario. If they’re over an hour, it’s worth going to Huntington.
BTW, you don’t cross the time zone boundary to get to Ontario. It’s in Mountain Time just like Idaho. You do cross it to get to Huntington, though.
My cop friends in TX told me that the candy was a felony (manufactured substance), while the bud form was just a misdemeanor in the small amounts I was asking about. One averages several busts a day on the eastbound 287 traffic coming back from CO.
Maybe it would be similar laws going from IL to MO. Forfeitures are still very real here too, although I don’t know what amounts before they seize your vehicle.
Well, yesterday marijuana became legal in Illinois.
Less than half a day passed before someone from Indiana was caught crossing back into Indiana with marijuana purchased in Illinois. The authorities were not amused.
There will be a period of adjustment.
Oregon is mostly a red state, by volume of area, not by voting. And there were several municipalities and counties in the eastern parts, like Ontario, Or. who said, “No, we will not have these pot shops in our area!”
After a short period of seeing all the tax dollars rolling in, Ontario changed its mind. Because they weren’t getting any and everyone else was.
It is the domino effect that they warned us about in Vietnam. If we don’t hold out against the tide, it will all fall. The pot laws are going to work about as well.
Red Indiana is going to see the money rolling in, from normal citizens next door in Illinois, and ask “why aren’t we getting the tax money too?” It will not take long before this is nation wide and no big deal.
Which is what I wrote.
Yeah. The store I work for has already increased its orders for snack foods at the gas station convenience store. We can’t sell pot, but we are going to do our best to help you with your munchies!
Don’t most warrants specify that, in addition to the obvious, the police are also looking for documents or cash connected to whatever the crime was? That would give them a pretext to include a glove compartment, or the like, in a search.